From the Ground Up: Give the gift of books this year

With the holidays just around the corner, there hardly seems time enough to get everything done. Yet this past week I sat down to spend some time with three books that have been sitting on my shelves for a while. It wasn’t that I was trying to avoid work. (Well, maybe there was some of that!) The real impetus was that I wanted to find out if the books would make good gifts for gardeners.

First, I cracked the cover of “A Rich Spot of Earth” (2012, Yale University Press). Written by Peter J. Hatch, the Director of Gardens and Grounds at Monticello since 1977, this beautifully written and illustrated book brings Thomas Jefferson’s great gardening experiment to life.

The book is comprehensive, with chapters on Jefferson’s love of gardening, how he designed and built the garden, restoring the original garden, the individual vegetables Jefferson grew, and even a look at the primary plant pests of the day. It’s fascinating both from a gardening perspective and also as a rich piece of American history.

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As Hatch describes it, Jefferson’s garden was a true American garden—a sort of “Ellis Island of economic plants; some 300 varieties of ninety-nine species of vegetables and herbs.”

The garden was American in another way. Says Hatch, “The Old World kitchen garden, complex and labor-intensive, was geared to overcome the cool, cloudy northern European climate by bringing fruits and vegetables to maturity out of season, using hotbeds of fermenting manure to harvest asparagus in December or melons in April.”

Hatch adds that, “Jefferson could grow more vegetables with significantly less skill or labor (than European gardeners) because the garden’s microclimate suited the new, warm-season vegetables and extended growing season.”

On my newlycreated Fireside Book-Ranking Scale (FBRS), I rate this a 10.

From the sweeping landscape of Monticello, I traveled to a typical back yard garden, with C. Marina Marchese’s book, “Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper” (2009, Black Dog & Leventhal).

It’s a delightful tale that Marchese relates, weaving into her own unexpected adventure in beekeeping a surprising amount of factual information about bees, as well as the bigger picture of the critical work that bees do in pollination; work that gives us most of the food we eat, along with much of what we wear. (Cotton flowers must be pollinated, too!)

Beekeeping definitely requires some time and dedication. But even if you have no intention of ever becoming a beekeeper, there is plenty in this little book to intrigue just about anyone.

For instance, there is some evidence that eating local honey helps against seasonal allergies. And we can all support local beekeepers (and bees) by buying local honey and honey/beeswax products. In fact, you could enhance the gift of the book with a jar of local honey or some beeswax candles.

FBRS rating: I give Honeybee an 8.

If you or a gardening friend has ever thought seriously about raising chickens, but have worried that the fowl will wreak havoc on the garden, take a look at “Free-Range Chicken Gardens” (2012, Timber Press).

Written by garden designer Jessi Bloom, his beautifully-illustrated, comprehensive book gives insight into the foraging habits of chickens and how they can both help and harm a garden. There is also information on the best plants to grow so that chickens get the most benefit from a “wild” diet rather than feed.

Cautionary notes: if you’re squeamish, you might want to skip over the instructions on how to get your chickens to enjoy eating slugs. Also, this is a serious planning guide that gets into overall landscape design, fencing, building coops, deciding on the best chicken breeds for your property, etc. So, while I think it is an excellent book, on the FBRS I give it a 4.

Happy reading!

-- Pam Baxter is an avid organic vegetable gardener who lives in Kimberton. She is newsletter editor of the Green Valleys Association. Direct e-mail to pcbaxter@verizon.net, or send mail to P.O. Box 80, Kimberton, PA 19442.